


As you come and I go

by Ruuuka



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-06
Updated: 2019-12-06
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:27:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21692218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ruuuka/pseuds/Ruuuka
Summary: Post-Thanos scribble – Loki reappears, buuut I forgot to add happiness.
Relationships: Loki & Thor (Marvel)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 24





	As you come and I go

Norns, the bruises on that neck looked horrible. Thor felt utterly guilty for this being his first thought. He stood close to the magic-infused glass wall, prison cell of SHIELD, wishing to break it down and touch the phenomenon to see it was real, but he stayed put, in respect for the planet that had taken in his people.

“You made it,” he observed dumbly through the clench in his gullet.

A nod was the answer. The sorcerer didn’t seem to feel or heed any pain.

“You can’t speak.”

A sad headshake, and the teal eyes regarded his bulky form gently, ceaselessly. Thor had subtle fright from crumbling under their weight.

“Are you all right?”

A nod.

“Do you think you’ll get your voice back?”

Thinking. Eyes darting around during a shrug and a headshake. Lips moved out of habit, a hand gestured.

“It’s why I’m here. I’ll talk to them and get you out of here, brother. But then you better behave or I won’t care if you’re shoved back into that cell for the rest of your life.”

A warm smile, two thumbs up. Great, they were communicating well enough.

-

Loki, wearing a light scarf, pointed at the giant hamburger in front of him, his dark eyebrows questioning. Thor bit into his own to indicate the suggested action.

“You’d think any living being can recognise food,” Peter Parker noted without the intention to insult. He was allowed to third-wheel their city outing and help them get around.

The sorcerer’s open palm graciously rejected the sustenance of inconvenient shape.

“What would you eat then?” Thor asked.

There was no answer, Loki was busy lifting the top of the burger, mostly interested in the meat cake. He dropped it back and reached for the plastic cup, suckling from the straw like the others did. After the first gulp, he placed it back with knitted eyebrows and stared at the neighbouring chair like that for a while.

The god of thunder spilled his own drink at one point.

“…the hell,” he grunted while Peter helped him wipe up the sugary puddle from the table.

-

Even in the following days, Thor would fumble around with unusual clumsiness. He’d get stuck in automatic doors. He would crush things in his hold, like he’d never learnt to control his strength. He’d bump into things that caused an avalanche of falling objects. Not everyone believed him, but he suspected that it wasn’t entirely his own fault.

Loki flashed an apologetic smile while Thor was discussing it with Bruce, and he held up his hand, faint green glow on his fingertips for a few seconds.

“Is your magic doing these things?” asked the scientist, somewhat surprised about the sorcerer’s unexpected confession.

Loki nodded meaningfully.

“He probably can’t control it well now,” Thor concluded, earning another nod.

As if to support the statement, that injured neck hadn’t healed very well in the past years. Then again, Thanos hadn’t been an ordinary opponent; and the discoloured patches on the skin weren’t causing any pain or hindrances in movement either, so the baffled medics decided not to bother the resisting god and let the body keep doing its own job for now.

-

The trickster wasn’t much good of a fighter any more, as if he had forgotten everything, though he could still wield his superhuman strength in battles against those alien troops that haunted Midgard in disorganised manners: a battle for dominance in the chaos left behind by the defeat of the Mad Titan.

Once, he endeavoured to heal a stab on himself. The attempt only lasted a second, and he snapped his hand away from his ribs with a hiss, revealing a burn mark, another one to remain for a long time afterwards. His expression showed that the failure dismayed - if not straightaway frightened - him.

“It takes time to learn again,” Thor guessed for comfort, firmly patting his brother’s shoulder. “You be patient and give yourself the time. You’ll be all right.”

-

One night, Loki snuck into the thunder god’s room and sat on his bed in the dark. Thor leaned up on his elbow and asked what was wrong, but he didn’t get a response. While he reached behind himself for the light switch, the sorcerer lay down on the edge of the double bed, meeting Thor’s gaze in the bright light as the blond turned back, rendered motionless by surprise. Loki had a way with his eyebrows, they were able to beg, apologise and ask when he wanted them to.

Thor shook his head, chuckling.

“I really don’t mind, brother. We used to do this, after all,” he said while settling on his back on the other half of the bed. “You’re the one who kicked me out when we were seven or so.”

Loki’s smirk was rather sarcastic, his look cast down.

“You’ll need that blanket under you for a good sleep, though.”

While the sorcerer wrapped himself up, Thor switched the light off.

Only, it wouldn’t switch off. No matter how he clicked away, the room remained well lit.

“What the hell,” he muttered once again. “Loki, come on.”

The trickster was staring at him from the self-made blanket roll, motionless. When Thor returned his gaze, a smile appeared that he didn’t quite recognise. Mischievous, as it fit the situation, but the familiar glint of falsehood was not in the teal eyes. What was in them?

Loki’s index finger rose, pointing at him and grinning: _you’ve been had_.

As the light bulb suddenly exploded, the moment before the blackness revealed his startled blink. Or perhaps it was the play of shadows. Thor unwittingly contemplated it for a few seconds.

“Remember that we’re not in the palace,” he warned then. “Nothing here is our property, so you better not go and ruin things.”

Thor lay awake in the dark long afterwards, with unbroken silence around, and a hum of uneasiness in his warrior’s instincts. Muttering prayers of gratitude for the life of his brother. His ears alone listening for anything to explain his tension.

It was close to dawn when he woke up to soundless weeping next to him. He rose instantly, quietly calling for his brother. His hand quickly felt around the unresponsive body, noting cold sweat. He hissed Loki’s name, shook his shoulder, startling him out of the dream. While the sorcerer sat up, Thor asked if anything hurt and recorded the headshake in the dim light. He held his brother’s shoulders soothingly, one arm behind the back and another reaching across his collarbone. Loki held onto that arm with both hands, as if seeking support.

“You’re here with me,” Thor told him. “You’re fine. There’s nothing.”

He wasn’t quite able to interpret the vehement headshake as a response, but he believed to find it out later if it mattered. He held the sorcerer, rocked him as a parent would, until he calmed down completely. Whatever history they had as a warning for precaution, Thor wouldn’t reject his brother if he was the one Loki needed.

-

He could detect worry unfolding in the trickster’s eyes the next afternoon, a few minutes after the expected aircraft landed near the Avengers tower, property of Pepper Stark’s family, occasional gathering point of the remaining Avengers, and temporary lodging for the two gods.

"No need to worry, they're friends," Thor told his brother. The answer was a nod, a smile. _Nothing wrong._

"Ready to share the mysterious purpose of your visit?" Pepper sharply asked of the approaching wizard.

“Almost,” Strange replied and turned to Thor. “Could I speak to you in private, please?"

They headed into the room granted for their privacy. Loki stuck to Thor, walking right behind him. The thunder god glanced at Strange when all three of them entered.

"Do you mind my brother?"

"You mean the thing behind you?" Strange inquired.

"It's Loki," Thor informed him, a little surprised. "He's a person. You’ve met him."

The former surgeon turned back and studied the trickster then, unfazed by the murderous look returned.

“That just puts things into place now,” he muttered, and at Thor’s puzzled look, he explained. Sort of. “You see, I've been... haunted by a certain matter lately. And it seems to be connected to you."

Thor returned his brother’s stare questioningly when the pale hand fell on his upper arm. But he only frowned at the morose headshake and glanced back at the human wizard.

“What is that matter?”

The former surgeon stepped closer, causing Loki to back up and attempt to tug the thunder god with himself by the sleeve of his sweater.

“It’s your brother.”

“What do you need from him?” Thor inquired, intending to make peace between the two.

“Me, nothing. _He_ does, however. And I agreed to help out.”

“What are you trying to say?”

Strange closed his eyes for a moment. Yes, it had been many years that his life was detached from the tangible world, and he found it increasingly difficult to say things so that these earth-bound creatures understood. But the tediousness of their conversations was mutual.

“What you’re defending there isn’t the brother you had when we first met,” he pointed out. “Loki is dead.”

“You make dangerous statements,” Thor replied, his face a shade darker than before. The trickster was now keeping an iron grasp on his upper arm, with both hands digging into his flesh in an attempt to catch his attention. Quiet clinking hit their ears from somewhere.

“Remember, I know a lot more of this Universe than you do,” said the wizard. “Don’t make it more difficult than it is.”

“I see no reason to believe you.”

“And you’re angering him with it.”

Thor finally looked to find the source of the unseen ruckus around them, unlike the other two, whose stares were now interlocked.

“I’m sorry, but I’ll have to get you out of there,” Strange informed the trickster, and Thor could feel tremor run through the fingers on his arm.

He was standing in the magician's way by the time the man stepped up to them.

"Hold up. You’re not to do any of your hocus-pocus as long as I-"

His voice cracked at the pain jolting through his spine.

"He'll live," Strange muttered, and it took another second for the thunder god to realise it wasn't addressed to him. During this period, he spun around and deflected his brother's arm, causing the dagger in it fly across the room. The trickster's other hand still held on firmly, twisting the other knife out of Thor's flesh painfully at the rapid movement.

"Loki, what are you doing?" the thunder god inquired between clenched teeth. Loki was being a fool, he was making his own delicate situation worse, why was he making it worse?

Whatever was the reason, the trickster, with lips tight, was bent on dipping the knife back into his brother's flesh.

"Perhaps the throat," Stephen suggested listlessly, aware of the unchanging outcome and eager to make it short.

The response was a pale hand swiftly reaching under a sleeve and slicing the air before Thor's neck with a new blade; the thunder god backed up in time and caught the offensive wrist with dismaying ease.

"What is going on?" he asked, his voice hoarser than he expected.

"A lingering spirit," the magician explained from the sidelines of the clumsy battle. "Nothing out of ordinary; but also nothing to be left unmended."

Thor barely listened; with the wrist still in his grasp, his free hand cupped the other's cool face, stilling the body, whose silence was absolute because it wasn't even breathing.

"Baldur, if the name rings a bell," Strange added.

Thor took it in with eyes closed before speaking up softly.

"He was my half brother, a misbegotten son. He passed away as a child, he was long gone by the time I found out about him."

"He's made a gruesome pact in the realm of the dead. He is to end you and earn your much more usable body with it. In exchange, your soul would become property of your vengeful sister."

Thor shook his head because he preferred disbelief to reality, and his captive mirrored his movement in the nest of his palm, to appease, to convince; but the shaky smile revealed that it was a lousy masquerade. It wasn't Loki's skilful coaxing, and it would never be again.

"Grudge has kept him in this world," Strange went on. "He turned where he could for release. Thor, he only craves rest from this tormented state like all others."

The thing - because Thor couldn't place it in his heart anymore - held onto his collar until he captured that hand as well, holding it between their bodies as a barrier against the other's determination to snuggle up to him. Thor gazed at the shamelessly pleading eyes of his brother with the never-known sibling's spirit behind them. Words felt thick and heavy on his tongue now.

"I bear with siblings that seek my life, whatever the purpose. But not in this way. Not through Loki."

The change into resentment on the familiar face was rather quick. Thor evaded the upcoming assault by swinging his captive into a chair, and then turning to the former surgeon like he didn’t expect any disobedience.

"Loki could come back then, couldn't he?” he inquired. “Can you help him take his body back?"

"He won't do that.”

"What? Why? Do what you have to do, magician, I know it's in your power."

"Look at his body, Thor,” Strange said then dryly. “Look at what it has become, what it has stayed with this unnatural life within. Would _you_ reduce yourself to such form in exchange of another hundred years?"

Before the thunder god could have answered, instinct spun his body around, and he defended another assault from the back.

“I feel with you,” he told his captive. “I do. Your fate pains my heart. But I won't let you reside in the place of my brother who cannot occupy it. Loki is gone, and if he won't return, neither can you. It would be unjust.”

He let the cool hand sneak up onto his cheek, thumb roaming with aimless caress, sweeping away the path of tears from the long healed scar. The teal eyes were wide and urging as the head shook in denial. The thunder god's eyes closed as the shaky thumb made foreign, futile attempts to pleasure him with tracing his eyebrow, his temple.

How many more times would he have to lose his brother?

"Not yet." It escaped his lips before he'd have thought to stop it when he sensed the magician’s stir. “Loki has sorcerous powers, he could make it.”

“There is no way.”

“How do you know-… How do you know he couldn’t help himself? He’s got immense healing powers,” he stuttered to stall while standing between his brother and Strange once again, as if his blood wouldn’t still be pouring from his wound. The footsteps he heard behind were hesitating and light.

"Thor, don't sway. It has to be done."

"You’re just guessing, aren’t you? You can’t take-"

"I'm sorry."

"No, wait-"

As the magician moved regardless, and he was in the way of the escaping figure in a blink, the sound of the spirit tossed out of its unrightful hiding jolted sharply in Thor.

_It's a heartbeat. You'll never be ready._

The remaining vessel fell backwards, into the god's arms. And he laid it on the ground carefully: a meaningless, helpless gesture, all he was capable of.

Minutes flew, he didn't note the ceremony that the former doctor performed to calm the spirit, until he heard him speak.

"I'm sorry for your loss."

"Baldur?"

"It's finished. They'll both rest." 

Thor sought relief or desperation, but his mind was dry, faint, powerless. It was a new sensation – it had always been new, felt different every single time. As if looking at it from a distance, his thoughts were robotic. He thought that he wouldn't have to get used to this any more. He thought that Loki could now receive a worthy funeral. And that he could rest with all in New Asgard. Thor would always find him there if ever needed. Then again...

“Is there no way to say farewell?”

“You’ve already had yours. It's time for you to step on your own path," said the magician.

"I'm leaving then," Thor breathed as the decision came to him. "This tiny planet cannot hold my kind."

The kind harbouring an amount of remorse that his own body couldn’t contain, that gushed out, and when it did, it exploded into ruin all around. There was no one deserving this punishment on Earth, those vile things resided in wider parts of the Universe.

For that reason, Thor was away shortly, travelling with his newest friends to find a path to bear him.


End file.
